Who Really Benefits From Illegal Immigration? | Victor Davis Hanson.... OTHER THAN NAFTA JOE???
More than five million illegal aliens have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since Joe Biden took office, according to a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. With some exceptions, these migrants tend to be low-skilled, poor, and come from countries where violence is normal and women and certain minorities are degraded. By importing millions of foreign nationals who come from countries with cultures and values that are diametrically opposed to ours, American leaders are setting the stage for exactly the kind of strife and turmoil that is occurring in France.
Tucker Carlson Tonight Interview DeSantis
OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
The Biden doctrine: “As long as it takes,” or “No matter how many die”
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden addressed a raucous mob of xenophobic Lithuanian nationalists in Vilnius following the conclusion of a NATO summit that pledged to massively expand military spending in preparation for global war.
Biden’s diatribe addressed the same themes as a speech he delivered last year in Warsaw, Poland, in which he pledged to “fight” for “years and decades to come.” Back in 2022, his unscripted rant compelled White House officials to publicly walk back the president’s remarks. But now his advisers no longer see the need to reinterpret and modify Biden’s bellicose statements. What he says about US war aims are not dementia-induced errors but actual declarations of the policies of his administration.
Speaking in Vilnius, Biden declared, “Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes.”
The length of a war is invariably related to the toll in human life. The longer a war continues, the greater the number of casualties and deaths, of both soldiers and civilians.
Therefore, when Biden proclaims once again that his administration and NATO will supply money and arms “as long as it takes” to bring about the defeat of Russia, what he is really saying is that the war will continue regardless of the cost in human lives.
This is the barbaric essence of what can be called the Biden Doctrine: “No matter how long it takes or how many die.”
Biden’s speech, in both its delivery and content, was typical of the man: Thoughtless, ill-informed, full of malapropisms and mangled grammar. It was pitched to the lowest intellectual level and basest instincts.
Biden delivered lie after lie, absurdity after absurdity, claiming the United States, which has continuously destabilized, bombed and invaded other countries since the end of the Second World War, was a force for democracy and
None other than Henry Kissinger, the oldest living American war criminal, once summed up with his characteristic cynicism the real attitude of US imperialism to moral principles. “The illegal we do immediately,” he said. “The unconstitutional takes a bit longer.”
Biden, whose own fingerprints are to be found on the scene of every crime committed by US imperialism over the last half-century, invoked “the United Nations Charter that we all signed up to: sovereignty, territorial integrity. These are two pillars of peaceful relations among nations. One country cannot be allowed to seize its neighbor’s territory by force.”
What contemptible hypocrisy! There is no single country that has violated the UN charter’s prohibition on the “use of force” as flagrantly and repeatedly as the United States, whose former Secretary of State Colin Powell once declared that it was his goal to turn the United States into “the biggest bully on the block.”
During his time in the Senate and then as vice president, Biden was a leading advocate and supporter of the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 1991, followed by the bombing of Yugoslavia eight years later in 1999. He backed the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and another invasion of Iraq in 2003. Biden advocated the American bombing campaigns and efforts to instigate regime-change in Libya and Syria.
These actions were carried out in open and flagrant defiance of the United Nations and of international law. In 2002, the United States withdrew from the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, and does not recognize the legitimacy of any international body to try US officials for the war crimes they regularly perpetrate.
Just last week, Biden announced that he would send cluster munitions to Ukraine, which are banned by over 100 countries because they kill and maim civilians for decades after conflicts end.
Biden made a garbled reference to Lithuania’s myth-based narrative of struggle against tyranny, and he boasted of the United States’ commitment to its freedom. But what Biden left out of his rambling history lecture was the intense collaboration of Lithuanian nationalists with Nazi Germany and direct participation in the mass murder of virtually the entire Jewish population of the country.
During the three-year Nazi occupation of Lithuania, 95 percent of the country’s Jewish population was exterminated—195,000 men, women and children were systematically killed.
This reality gave an ominous tone to Biden’s declaration that “the bonds between Lithuanian and the American people have never faltered,” praising Lithuanian exiles who traveled to the United States.
What Biden did not mention, however, is that two of the Lithuanian immigrants welcomed by the United States happened to be the individuals most responsible for the Holocaust in that country.
Aleksandras Lileikis, the chief of the Lithuanian Security Police in Vilnius during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania and a perpetrator of the Holocaust, was given safe passage to the United States and was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency. His deputy, Kazys Gimžauskas, also emigrated to the United States, as well as three of his subordinates.
Neither of the two men saw a day of jail time for their participation in the Holocaust.
Even as he denounced Russia for refusing any “diplomatic solution” to the conflict, Biden boasted of his own role in the expansion of NATO. He declared, “I had the great honor as United States senator to champion Lithuania and other Baltic States to join NATO in 2004. Wasn’t I brilliant doing that?”
In voting for the expansion of NATO in 1998, Biden proclaimed “the beginning of another 50 years of peace.” In reality, the United States was deliberately setting the stage for the type of fratricidal war that has erupted in Ukraine, with the aim of drawing Russia into wars on its borders and bleeding it white.
Among the most absurd of Biden’s lies was his attempt to posture as a proponent of a “diplomatic outcome” of the war in Ukraine. “Unfortunately, Russia has shown thus far no interest in the diplomatic outcome,” Biden said.
“Russia could end this war tomorrow by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine, recognize these international borders,” he declared. But he defined this “diplomatic outcome” as the total capitulation by Russia and the achievement of all of NATO’s war aims. Biden’s “diplomatic solution” is military victory.
The president’s provocative statements are intended to preclude any negotiated settlement of the conflict, which US imperialism sees as a critical component of its drive to subjugate Russia and China.
Biden’s “No matter how many die” doctrine means the war will escalate, countless thousands more will die, and the world will be brought to the brink of a nuclear conflagration. Nothing can stop this except the development of an international anti-war movement based on the working class.
Khanna: We Spend Billions on Defense, But Are Running Out of Ammo, ‘Where Is This Money Going?’
On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stated that it makes no sense that we spend billions of dollars on defense every year but we have managed to run out of the ammunition that we give to Ukraine after a year of war and that this shows that there is a clear lack of accountability over where the money we spend in the defense budget ends up going.
Khanna said, “Well, the first thing we have to also understand is the spending. Let’s be clear, Jim, we are being gouged by defense contractors in terms of the — what taxpayers are being charged. Here’s the question I have: We have almost a trillion-dollar defense budget, and we can’t make enough artillery to give to Ukraine? We’ve had this war for almost a year and we’ve run out of money to have sufficient artillery in terms of steel? Of the top 15 companies, nine of them are in China, not one in the United States. Where is this money going? We need accountability, and we need to be building the industrial base and actually having things that are going to strengthen our national security.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
Senators Vance and Hawley Introduce Bill to Put an End to Pentagon’s Multi-Billion Dollar 'Accounting Errors'
Republican Senators J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation on Wednesday aimed to prevent the Pentagon from making any more “accounting errors,” after the Biden Administration revealed that it overestimated the value of military equipment sent to Ukraine by $6 billion.
According to Fox News, the bill would require that, when the Foreign Assistance Act’s presidential drawdown authority (PDA) is used for a emergency, the Department of Defense (DoD) must calculate the "aggregate value" of defense articles, by using either the original acquisition cost to the U.S. government plus the cost of improvements or modifications made, or the cost of replacing these articles, whichever is greater.
It would also force the DoD to calculate the full cost of what the U.S. government spends on providing defense services.
"There should be no excuse for accounting errors with a seven-figure price tag," Vance told Fox Digital. "With this bill, Congress can ensure that the cost of our military aid is properly and consistently calculated."
Senator Hawley told Fox Digital that the "so-called valuation errors around U.S. aid to Ukraine are a transparent attempt to bypass Congress for additional funds, while continuing to prioritize Ukraine over more vital U.S. interests, including deterring China in the Pacific."
The PDA allows the president to send military equipment to foreign countries from DoD’s current stockpiles. This is how the U.S. has been sending Ukraine equipment for the last two years. Drawdown authority allows the government to quickly send supplies without having to buy new equipment.
However, this maneuver depletes U.S. stockpiles.
Last month Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh revealed that the replacement costs of the equipment were used to estimate the value, rather than the book cost of the equipment that was pulled from the U.S. stockpile. This resulted in a $6.3 billion dollar overvaluation and extra money in the coffers for Ukraine.
Hawley and Vance are not the only senators who are concerned about these “accounting errors” at the Pentagon. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), asking it to review the entirety of the DoD’s accounting of all equipment provided to Ukraine.
The letter also points out that the Biden Administration might be purposely overvaluing the equipment, in order to give more aid that’s actually being reported.
Biden's new military boost in Europe foretells a new censorship state for Americans
Just what the most repressive U.S. administration since Woodrow Wilson's ordered: a military buildup to draw us closer into a hot war with Russia, which will have the bonus for this Despotic Clique of providing the excuse for FBI head Christopher Wray to order a ruthless crackdown on political dissent, not to mention refusal to comply with congressional oversight requests.
Here are the lede paragraphs in Politico's report on this startling development of a U.S. military buildup. Not that this just happened to occur hours after word broke of House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan's letter to Wray calling for release by July 27 of documents concerning the FBI surveillance, via Google, of staffers on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — surveillance believed to been in retaliation for the Intelligence Committee's probe of the FBI.
President Joe Biden has authorized the military to call up 3,000 reserve troops to support operations in Europe after tens of thousands were sent there last year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a top general said Thursday.
Although it is not clear whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin plans to actually deploy these reservists anytime soon, the move suggests that the U.S. military's training mission in Europe, along with the deployment of several new brigades after the invasion, has stretched active-duty forces.
The Politico report goes on to provide a rationale how the move is needed to protect he eastern flank of NATO — which of course is a euphemism for saying that NATO, in recent decades, has expanded eastward into the former countries of the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact. Politico also mentions what might be news to most Americans: that Biden sent an additional 20 thousand troops to Europe at the start of the war in Ukraine, bringing the total now to 100,000 troops on the continent. The Politico story continues:
"This reaffirms the unwavering support and commitment to the defense of NATO's eastern flank in the wake of Russia's illegal and unprovoked war on Ukraine," Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters on Thursday.
"While the move gives the military's European Command "greater flexibility" to defend the continent, it will not change the actual force levels in Europe, Capt. Bill Speaks, a spokesperson for U.S. European Command, said in a statement.
The president's order also for the first time designates Operation Atlantic Resolve, the U.S. effort in Europe, as a contingency operation, which allows the Pentagon to call up reserve forces and implement sped-up acquisition authorities to supply those troops with equipment.
The designation not only allows the president to mobilize reservists, but also ensures they are paid and supported as active-duty troops. It also provides support for families and dependents of any reservists who might be deployed.
The U.S. rushed 20,000 more troops to Europe after Russia's invasion, bringing the total to over 100,000 on the continent. That includes new rotations of 10,000 troops in Poland, which has emerged as a critical hub for supporting and supplying Ukraine.
What next should we expect from the most repressive American regime since Wilson jailed Eugene V. Debs for opposing his war policy? Arrest and detention of former president Trump if he speaks out against Biden's moves on behalf of the Despotic Clique to get us into a hot war with Putin, renewing, not coincidentally, the false allegations of 2017 to 2019 that Mr. Trump was Putin's puppet?
Think about the unleashed boldness of the Despotic Clique (previously known as the Deep State) as a political trifecta: 1) election interference and the destruction of MAGA; 2) political dominance — through media-sanctioned exaltation of Biden, and 3) an end to the notion of an independent Judiciary — sending Judge Doughty's reaffirmation of the First Amendment into the nearest trash bin.
Among other things, who would dare question the honesty, integrity, or competence of President Biden? To do so would risk immediate charges of treason from Garland's Justice Department, preceded by lightning SWAT raids from Wray's FBI.
Plus — and this is the delicious part — the rush of backstabbers like William Barr, Chris Christie, and Paul Ryan to declare, "Now is the time for all good persons to come to the aid of the uniparty."
American democracy is very much in peril — and the peril comes from those who spent years demonizing Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party. Apparently, the dastardly deed is about to pay off. The Founding Fathers are weeping.
Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Here is the truth: An unstable Mexico would present horrible consequences for the U.S., and it's time to start talking about what's going on down there, from organized crime terrorizing local communities to cartels bringing fentanyl across the border to a president who dreams of being a third-world leader.
We need more candidates talking about Mexico
Down in Mexico, organized crime is on the rise and sending a message, according to Kellin Dillon, a fine reporter with Pulse News Mexico. This is the latest report:
According to national security experts, Mexico’s organized crime drug trafficking groups have escalated the use of explosive devices in order to instill fear in local communities, a violent methodology that left three security officers dead and another 10 people injured in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco, on the night of Tuesday, July 11.
Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) documented 288 incidents where improvised explosives were used under the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) between December 2018 and February 2022, a 223 percent increase from the six-year term of his predecessor former President Enrique Peña Nieto.
That same Sedena report went on to reveal that 1,342 explosive devices were used across the 288 incidents, usually in the form of car bombs, land mines or explosives dropped from drones.
And where is President López-Obrador? He is not engaged, according to Daniel Battle:
Unlike previous administrations, López Obrador has taken a hands-off approach to the cartels, even denying that fentanyl is produced in Mexico. Predictably, the cartels have expanded their power and reach. They have also diversified into extortion, kidnapping, agriculture, mining and other activities.
Again, where is President López-Obrador? He is arguing with Peru over an impeachment down there, hugging the Cuban dictator and looking more and more like a man who wants to do in Mexico what Chávez did in Venezuela.
Where is the Biden administration? They are hunting down "white supremacists," parents who don't want their eight-year-old kids indoctrinated with sexuality lessons and treating López-Obrador's disdain for Mexican democracy like an afternoon shower that will pass.
Mexico will elect a new president in twelve months. President Biden, and definitely the GOP candidates, need to talk more about Mexico. I mean more than the border crisis but rather the erosion of law happening under the man they refer to as AMLO. We should support Mexican democratic institutions, such as the Supreme Court under siege by the authoritarian López-Obrador administration.
Here is the truth: An unstable Mexico would present horrible consequences for the U.S., and it's time to start talking about what's going on down there, from organized crime terrorizing local communities to cartels bringing fentanyl across the border to a president who dreams of being a third-world leader.
PS: Check out my blog for posts, podcasts, and videos.
Image via Peakpx.
In Defense of Hunter Biden
Notwithstanding Hunter Biden's moral deficiencies in other matters, based on what has been publicized so far, legally, he may have done nothing wrong being part of his father's Ukrainian enterprise. Joe Biden’s shenanigans and his son’s role in it need to be understood in the context of Ukraine's corrupt political culture.
Corruption is deeply embedded into the Ukrainian DNA. It is the blood of the Ukrainian economy - the stimulus for government officials and employees to perform their duties. Corruption is a fundamental necessity, a precondition for functioning governance.
Never-ending redistribution and re-division of assets is a defining characteristic of the Ukrainian business environment. People in business are constantly threatened by corporate raiders that attack businesses with guns, forged ownership documents, or new laws and regulations. To protect themselves from these realities, businesses hire “roof.” In criminal jargon, it means protection. Various entities offer protection: organized crime, police, high-ranking government officials, etc. The necessity for a “roof” is built into the cost of doing business.
In 2002, during President Viktor Yanukovych's tenure, his ecology minister Mykola Zlochevsky registered Burisma Holding Limited in Cypress. Burisma secured lucrative government licenses for gas field exploration and production to become Ukraine's second-largest private gas company. And not by accident. De jure, the licenses for the exploration of natural resources are drafted as bilateral agreements between the government entities and private enterprises, but de facto, they are unilateral and revocable grants of privileges by a president and high-ranking government officials to their cronies and supporters. As long as President Yanukovych was in power, Mr. Zlochevsky’s assets were secured from a hostile takeover. President Yanukovych was his “roof” and benefactor.
But nothing is permanent in the wicked Ukrainian world.
In February 2014, Yanukovych was overthrown in an America-sponsored coup and fled the country. Zlochevsky followed him shortly after. In a dramatic reversal of fortunes, Burisma overnight changed from one of the strongest to one of the weakest. The recourse of the weakest was to find a new “roof” before the newly-elected Petro Poroshenko’s government was sworn in during June 2014.
It is unknown when and who approached Joe Biden or John Kerry, Secretary of State at the time, and what was offered in exchange for lobbying and political support. But on April 22, 2014, Devon Archer, a managing partner of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a $2.4 billion private equity firm co-owned by the stepson of John Kerry, Christopher Heinz, was put on Burisma’s board.
On May 13, 2014, Hunter Biden himself joined the board.
On the same day, Christopher Heinz rushed to distance himself and the firm from what looked like an unscrupulous endeavor. He sent emails to Matt Summers and David Wade, two of his stepfather’s top aides at the State Department, “I can’t speak why they decided to, but there was no investment by our firm in their company,” wrote Heinz. Whether Christopher Heinz intended to dissociate his firm from the activity or to create plausible deniability, the passage revealed that the State Department was aware of the arrangement and exposed Christopher Heinz’s concern regarding, if not the legality, the ethics of the undertaking.
For Burisma, the impact of having Hunter Biden and Devon Archer on its board could not be overstated. It had acquired an ultimate “roof” — the Vice President of the United States of America. We must not be naïve; Burisma did not hire good-for-nothing drug addict Hunter Biden for his expertizes or business acumen. It did not hire obscure Devon Archer for his administrative genius either — they were simply messengers. There was no other way to interpret the assignments of Hunter Biden and Devon Archer to the board of Burisma.
By their presence on the board the “roof” sent a subliminal message to Poroshenko, who made no secret of his desire to add Burisma to his basket of assets, that the United States government protects. Although Poroshenko got the message, he could not resist the temptation. As soon as he was sworn in, he directed his prosecutor-general, Vitally Yarema, to open a corruption investigation into Burisma.
Corruption investigations have been an effective instrument of force reallocating assets in Ukraine. It is important to point out that Yarema did not investigate Hunter Biden. There was simply nothing to investigate, Burisma was a private company and could appoint to its board anybody. Yarema was tasked to uncover or manufacture some dirt on Burisma and its owner Mykola Zlochevsky.
In January 2015, Yarema was replaced with Poroshenko’s close associate Viktor Shokin, who continued the investigation. Just like his predecessor, Viktor Shokin did not investigate Hunter Biden. Prosecutor Shokin was directed by President Poroshenko to build a corruption case to forfeit the profitable gas licenses awarded to Burisma.
By 2016, the investigation was at its pinnacle, and Burisma’s management panicked. They had been contacting the State Department requesting it to help end the investigation. In the spring of 2016, Joe Biden was forced to act. He stepped in to protect his son’s employer, Burisma Holdings, and demanded Poroshenko dismiss Shokin.
Poroshenko tried to stall it, but Biden issued an ultimatum, “You have six hours to solve the problem, or Ukraine would lose a billion dollars in US aid.” Poroshenko capitulated — Shokin was fired.
Biden bragged about his accomplishment: ‘You have no authority. You’re not the President —Poroshenko said’ … I said, 'Call him.' “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a b----. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."
In the process, Biden inadvertently admitted that President Obama, if not involved, at least was aware of the shady business of his Vice President.
At this juncture, Poroshenko realized the futility of his efforts and decided that having a percentage of something is better than a hundred percent of nothing. He made a deal with Zlochevsky. Poroshenko’s trusted man Igor Kononenko joined Burisma’s board. The vanquished enemies became allies. Miraculously, there was no longer a need for investigation, and a new prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko, “who was solid at the time,” closed the probe. There was no longer a need for Joe Biden’s services either. Hunter Biden and Devon Archer eventually resigned from Burisma's board. Zlochevsky returned to the country. The “roof” had earned its pay.
The payment must be worth millions of dollars. The sixty thousand dollars a month paid to Hunter Biden and Devon Archer was a drop in the bucket. The big money has gone to someone else. Lacking an understanding of the Ukrainian business environment, the Republicans have been targeting Hunter Biden, a tiny fish in multimillion dollar international protection rocket who may not even be fit for prosecution. Thus far, he has served as a distraction from investigating the senior-level perpetrator(s).
Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a conservative think hosted at King’s College, New York City, which examines national security, energy, risk-analysis, and other public policy issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at info@litwinms.com
Photo credit: Rumble video screengrab
THERE'S NO GREATER THREAT TO AMERICA THAN JOE BIDEN!
But the present nightmare is no dream, and things are only getting worse in America.
Will someone please wake me from this nightmare?
While Trump was president, nearly 500 miles of wall were built and immigration was controlled. Biden has opened the border and invited all to come, and they are coming by the millions.
Khanna: We Spend Billions on Defense, But Are Running Out of Ammo, ‘Where Is This Money Going?’
On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stated that it makes no sense that we spend billions of dollars on defense every year but we have managed to run out of the ammunition that we give to Ukraine after a year of war and that this shows that there is a clear lack of accountability over where the money we spend in the defense budget ends up going.
Khanna said, “Well, the first thing we have to also understand is the spending. Let’s be clear, Jim, we are being gouged by defense contractors in terms of the — what taxpayers are being charged. Here’s the question I have: We have almost a trillion-dollar defense budget, and we can’t make enough artillery to give to Ukraine? We’ve had this war for almost a year and we’ve run out of money to have sufficient artillery in terms of steel? Of the top 15 companies, nine of them are in China, not one in the United States. Where is this money going? We need accountability, and we need to be building the industrial base and actually having things that are going to strengthen our national security.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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